Paradigm (Sequel to Rendezvous at Monteriggioni)
by Atlantima
Summary: On October 1, she found her missing boyfriend, Desmond Wilson, in a little Italian village called Monteriggioni. His family wasn't just some weird cult. It was the Assassin Brotherhood. His name wasn't Wilson. It was Miles. Tagging along with the Assassins was more fun than she'd thought it would be. But those fun times ended the night of October 10. What's going to happen now?
1. Fioraio

**Takes place immediately after the end of the modern-day _Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood_ storyline, so fair warning, there are spoilers for the end of _Brotherhood_ and will be spoilers for _Revelations_ in some later chapters.**

* * *

Alexis Chandler was lost in a haze. She had no idea how long it'd taken them to get back to the van carrying her comatose... boyfriend. Using that word to describe him sounded so wrong, after what she'd just seen.

Although... she hadn't actually seen it. Because Desmond had used the Apple of Eden to... what? To stop time? To move at unimaginable speed? To erase their memories of those fateful moments? To hell with the specifics; the situation made no sense no matter which one it was.

_Do I really know this man? I thought I did, but... I only found out his real name a few days ago._

Now he was sprawled ungainly on the Animus, the dark red of dried blood on his clothes a hideous contrast against the cheery cherry of the vinyl padding. She thought back to that first night of her vacation, when she'd discovered his Hidden Blade.

_"I would never hurt you, you know that, right?"_

He'd done more than just hurt Lucy. He'd killed her. It didn't make any sense. Why would he suddenly turn against a member of his team? Had he, perhaps, lost control of his actions somehow? Was this another Bleeding Effect, triggered by touching the Apple? She couldn't find her voice to ask any of these questions out loud.

Near-constant sniffles and sobs came from Rebecca in the passenger seat. Shaun was driving; where to, Alexis didn't know or care. Meanwhile, she'd been relegated to the back of the van.

With Lucy.

And Desmond.

_"You're not frightened?" "Of you? No, never."_

She **was** frightened now. Shaun had divested him of the blade, but she still couldn't shake the possibility that at any moment he might get up out of the Animus and attack her.

_Maybe it's not too late for me to back out of all this. He said if I went with him I could never go back... but they wouldn't make me stay if I didn't want to, would they? They're supposed to be the good guys, they wouldn't keep me prisoner, would they?_

The van slowed, and then Shaun backed up and parked it somewhere. Alexis wanted to ask him what was going to happen now, to ask him if she could leave, if he could take her to the airport, but couldn't muster the ability to do anything besides look blearily up at him. As he got out of the van, all he said was, "Right, now you all stay quiet for a bit."

Shaun walked off. Soon there was a loud doorbell ringing very close by. It rang again after a minute, and then a third time, more insistently. From somewhere above them Alexis heard an irritated woman shouting.

"Non si può leggere?! Apriamo alle otto!"

The next words she heard were also Italian, but in a familiar British accent. "Allora, io sono Otto! Cerco mio fratello!"

"Vattene, smargiasso!" The first speaker had become even more annoyed.

"Ci danno tregua! Abbiamo guidato diciassette miglia per arrivare qui!"

"Non mi interessa!"

"Dissi **diciassette**! **miglia**!" Shaun angrily re-enunciated two words from his previous sentence. There was no immediate reply. He groaned in frustration. "Stiamo cercando per nostro **fratello**!"

A window opened somewhere. "Aspetta, diciassette... Che cavolo, stai serio?"

"Sì, sì!"

"Solo tu?"

"No. Venite alla porta di consegna."

Now the woman groaned as the window was closed again. Alexis hadn't followed most of that. _Something about a brother... looking for someone's brother... yes, Shaun was serious... "only you?"_ Before she could puzzle much longer over the significance of the exchange, Shaun had returned. He backed up the van a short distance and then-

"Alex, open the back doors." She did as he asked. As she opened them she saw that the van was now inside some sort of garage. She saw a frazzled-looking woman, presumably the one Shaun had just spoken with.

The stranger's eyes alighted on Lucy's lifeless and bloody form. "Che cavolo? Non vi nascondo cadaveri!"

"Non vi stiamo chiedendo di," Shaun told her.

"E che cosa è questo?" She pointed to the Animus.

The reply was instant and firm. "Questo è niente. Hai visto niente. Capisce?"

_"You saw nothing. Got it?"_ Alexis understood that part, at least. "What's going on?" she finally managed to ask.

"This is our rendezvous point."

"So, she's-"

He cut her off. "You're still meant to be keeping quiet."

"Chi è questo fratello che state cercando, esattamente?"

"Non importa. Lui sa dove noi incontrerà," Shaun replied, and then gestured to Rebecca and Alexis that they could get out from the van.

"Dovrebbe non portare alcun disturbi con lui! Voi Assassini siete abbastanza guai," the woman fumed. "Se maledetti Templari bussare alla mia porta, ti darò a loro piuttosto che avere il mio negozio saccheggiato!"

Alexis didn't need to know Italian to get that the woman was far from happy to have them there.

* * *

The woman, it turned out, was one Vanessa Lombardi. Contrary to what Alexis had assumed, Vanessa wasn't actually an Assassin herself, though most of her mother's family, the Santorinis, had been Assassins since the early twentieth century.

Shaun went on and on about the history of the little flower shop they were now hiding out in the basement of. "You see, this place used to be a full-fledged den, a major base of operations for the Italian Assassins. It all started round about 1910 or so, with an interesting chap by the name of Vincenzo. Now, I can't be sure on a lot of the details, as most of these events were 'off the books and under the table', as befits the Brotherhood, and much of the records that were kept got purged by the Order, what with their fondness for erasing and rewriting history," Shaun only paused briefly for the necessity of taking a breath, "but from what I've been able to piece together..."

Alexis, now feeling a bit ill at ease about the whole concept of Assassins, tuned him out. She poked mournfully at her bowl of bland pasta, going over the events of the past few days. Things had been getting crazy, sure, the more Desmond and his pals revealed to her, the crazier. Especially since she'd found out that the fate of the world rested on their ragtag team. But they'd still been able to stay lighthearted and joke about it.

But now... Now there were no more jokes. Now one of them was dead. And they didn't even know why.

"...legendary healing capabilities," Shaun was saying. "And it's even mentioned in some of da Vinci's writings, can you believe that?"

Rebecca finally snapped. "Just shut the fuck up already! We're not in the mood for your stupid history lesson! Did you forget Lucy's **dead**?"

Shaun glared at her. "No, Rebecca. No, I didn't. I was trying to keep my mind off the subject, thank you very much."

Rebecca glared back, gears churning in her brain in an attempt to think up a suitably biting retort.

"Wha- what do we do now?" Alexis stuttered. She'd wanted to ask this for hours, but had only managed just now to produce the words.

"We wait for our glorious leader," Shaun said snidely. "Maybe he'll have some idea what the fuck's got into Desmond's head."

"Des..." She couldn't bring herself to say his name. "What's going to happen with him?"

"Don't ask me, ask Miss Merciful here." Shaun pointed a critical finger at Rebecca. "She's the one who said we should put him back in the Animus."

"Well what other option was there? Just leave him in the church to die?"

"Sounds fine and dandy to me!"

"Our mission was to rescue him, fuckface!" Rebecca snarled.

"Yeah, and we've bloody well done that! Or no, actually, Lucy's done that!" Shaun shot back. "And look how he's repaid her kindness!"

"We don't know he did that on purpose!"

"Oh, it's okay if he didn't, eh? It's okay to keep him around if he's a mindless killing machine programmed just like Cross was?!"

Rebecca slammed her palms down on the table. "Wait until Bill gets here at least!"

Shaun let out an exhalation of breath that sounded more like a growl. "...Fine. We'll hang onto him for now. I'm not going to be happy about it, though."

"Nobody's happy about this, Shaun." Rebecca cradled her face in her hands. "Nobody," she repeated, her voice cracking. Then she dissolved into tears again.


	2. Chapter 2

Alexis couldn't sleep. She couldn't have slept even if there'd been actual beds in the musty basement. As it was, she just lay limp in the sleeping bag Shaun had wordlessly handed her after dinner. Her eyes focused on a small frayed hole in it. Her ears focused on little drops of rain dribbling against the building's upper levels. She focused on whatever she could to keep her memory from replaying that sick scene.

But try as she might, it didn't work. In her mind, the frayed polyester became torn clothes and the raindrops became the blood that soaked them. Wiping her arm across her face to dry what little tears remained there, she sniffled, and the sound was harsh, embarrassingly loud in the otherwise silence.

"S- sorry," she muttered to the others.

"Trust me, your eensy little sniffles aren't the least of what's bothering me right now, Alex," said Shaun from his sleeping bag a few feet away.

Rebecca was leaning against the doorway, keeping watch up the stairwell. She made a sound halfway between a forlorn sigh and a yawn. Even here in the relative safety of an ally's house, they had to be on their guard. "Attacks can come anytime, from anywhere," she'd told Alexis earlier that night. _And from anyone_ had been the unspoken extension.

Alexis tried again to get to sleep. She wasn't aware she'd been chewing at her right thumbnail until it began to bleed and she buried it in the fist of her other hand. Even this innocuous action brought forth the memory of bloodied blade thrust into flesh.

Her mind replayed the scene yet again. Shaun's enthusiastic gushing about the ancient symbols projected around them. The dull thump of two bodies hitting the floor. Their mad and fruitless rush to stop the bleeding. So much blood, coming so fast. The cut had been deadly deep. _He's trained to kill. It's what they do. And they've been perfecting those blades since ancient times to do it as efficiently as possible._

A question occured to her, and when she saw Shaun wriggle and turn over, for apparently he was still restless as well, she started to ask it of him. "Why did he-"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Shaun sat up, his glare piercing the semidarkness. "And trust me, that's not something I say often."

Alexis swallowed. "I mean... why'd he have... why was he armed?"

Shaun let out an annoyed grunt.

"Did you expect-"

"Expect Templars under the church? No, we only gave him the blade to fight off the ones that crashed our previous hideout." Shaun's nose wrinkled. "I never gave a thought to taking it back afterwards."

Rebecca gestured for them to be quiet. "Vanessa's coming."

Soft steps padded down the stairs, followed by a decidedly non-soft voice. "Sarai qui molto più tempo? Questo non è un albergo!"

Shaun turned his glare onto Vanessa. "Sì, lo so, perché albergatori non fastidio gli ospiti quando stanno cercando di dormire."

Vanessa curled her lip into a sneer. "Si dice che voi Assassini 'agire in notturna'."

"Agiamo nell'**ombra**," Shaun said with a snide wave of his hand as he fell back into his sleeping bag. "Ombra, fucking twat. And it's a bloody metaphor anyway!"

Vanessa made a dismissive "pah!", spun on her heel, and left. "Assassini, e inglesi anche. Che palle!"

Rebecca folded her arms. "Hey, Shaun, wild idea, but how about **not** pissing off the closest thing we have to an ally in the whole damn country."

"She's eternally pissed off, since the moment we got here, haven't you noticed? And she fucking baited me with that stupid comment." Shaun put on a mocking voice. "'Oh, aren't Assassins meant to work at night?' No, you pillock, it's 'work in the darkness', obviously!"

Strangely soothed by his intermittent complaints, Alexis eventually did manage to sleep.

* * *

She woke to the noise of early-morning delivery trucks rumbling over the roads. Shaun waved from his seat at a collapsible table across the room. "Morning. Sleep well?"

She sat up and scratched her head; feeling how dishevelled her hair was from tossing and turning. "Not really."

"Mrm. Stupid of me to ask, right?" Shaun said after chewing through a mouthful of pastry. "Bloody stressful, last night. I don't imagine it'll get much better today, either. But there's coffee, at least." He gestured to a trio of mugs on the table. "Not the greatest coffee, but decent enough."

Alexis went to her suitcase to get her hairbrush and tame the tangles. "Bloody stressful" echoed heavily in her head. That double meaning was the sort of thing she'd usually find amusing, but right now? She shook her head and stifled a sob into a cough.

Behind her, Rebecca was waking up and joining Shaun at the table. She grunted a monosyllabic question at him: "Bill?"

"Not here yet. Obviously."

"When?"

"I'm sure he's on his way!" Shaun snapped back. "I can't very well phone him up and ask for a specific ETA!" He looked up, his angry face softening a bit, as Alexis silently came over. "Ehm... I bet you're wishing you'd gone somewhere else on holiday."

"Or just stayed in New York."

"Well, I'm somewhat glad you're here."

Alexis paused mid-reaching for a pastry and gave him a dubious look. "Five days ago you thought I was a Templar spy."

"Well, last night, with two of our usual team members being... indisposed," here Shaun frowned and adjusted his glasses, "you were a great help with packing our kit up and moving out quick."

"So... because I helped move the Animus and..." Alexis couldn't manage to say Desmond's or Lucy's name, so she left a meaningful pause in before the rest of the sentence: "...you don't think I'm a spy anymore."

"No, that's the reason I'm glad to have you. It's your overall lack of knowledge about Templars, Precursors, and whatnot that discredits the spy idea." Shaun half-smiled. "You're a damn ineffectual spy if that."

"...Thanks, I guess." She bit into the pastry, then looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching down the stairs. Not Vanessa's, though. These sounded heavier, more purposeful.

"Fuckin' finally," Rebecca grumbled, and downed the rest of her coffee in a single gulp.

The basement door opened and someone strode in. He was a serious-looking man- at least sixty years old, by Alexis' guess- dressed in a beige business suit, the jacket unbuttoned, a rumpled shirt underneath. _Is this "Bill"? He doesn't look like a "Bill" to me._

"Miss Crane. Mr. Hastings." The man, whoever he was, inclined his head a fraction of a degree to Rebecca and then to Shaun as he addressed them. "And you." He turned to Alexis. "You must be Miss Chandler."

The steely gray eyes and wintry expression left her nearly paralyzed. "H- hello," she managed, beginning to raise her arm, to offer a handshake. But the man was already looking back at the other two Assassins.

"Where are Miss Stillman and Desmond?" Alexis couldn't help but notice it wasn't "Mr. Miles".

"They're in the van," Shaun answered glumly.

"And?" The older man had obviously inferred there was more to it than that.

Shaun heaved a sigh. "Desmond is back in the An... in the machine." It seemed they needed to speak in ambiguities. Alexis wondered why. _Who could possibly be listening in? There's only Vanessa, and she apparently doesn't speak English._ But perhaps they were just being cautious out of habit, she decided after a moment's thought. They hadn't avoided saying "Animus" or anything like that before, but now their leader was here, and maybe his presence caused them to be more formal about the secretive nature of their work.

"Didn't you find the Piece already? You know he shouldn't be in there any longer than necessary," the old man said sternly.

"His body systems were shutting down," Rebecca said, unable to meet the man's gaze. "He's in a coma." Grey eyes widened at this news. "The machine is keeping him alive."

"Not as if he deserves it," Shaun sneered. "But there's probably less red tape and hoops to jump if we only have to deal with **one** dead body."

"What are you saying? Lucy?!" His tone finally contained emotion: shock, sadness, but most of all, anger. "Tell me what happened!"

"Lucy's dead, William. Your son killed her."

Alexis's heart stopped, both from the blunt reminder of last night's brutality and from the revelation that this man- the Assassin team's leader- was Desmond's father.

Horrified by this news, William's whole body trembled. "Desmond..." He fell into a chair and took a deep breath. "But... but why?"

"We don't know 'why' any more than you do! Everything was going hunky-dory, we were about to secure the Piece, and then just like that," Shaun snapped his fingers, "it all went to shite!"

William's head swiveled up at the mention of the Apple. "Did you secure it?" he asked sharply.

"Yes, we managed that much at least, so it wasn't a **complete** debacle."

"Mm." William frowned at the floor.

"So now what?" Rebecca asked quietly.

There was silence from William, then a prolonged exhalation. "Well... the plan **was** to charter a private jet out of Italy... But now we'll obviously have to deal with L-" He stopped, seeming to choke on the name, then took another breath before resuming. "We'll have to make some arrangements first. I'll speak to Miss Lombardi. Perhaps she can point us toward a funeral home that can keep this quiet." He looked straight at Shaun. "When exactly did he... You're sure Desmond really did it?"

"Well it sure wasn't any of **our** Hidden Blades that stabbed her!"

"There wasn't any way you could have stopped him?"

"It all happened in less than a microsecond! As soon as he touched that blasted Apple!"

"He touched..." William's eyes bugged out. "You're saying he actually used it? Activated it?"

"Or it activated him, or something!" Rebecca said. "There must have been some interaction, I don't know if it was intentional on Desmond's part or not."

Shaun's fists clenched. "I'm afraid this may be another Cross type situation."

"No," William spat firmly. "Not Desmond."

"Right. You would say that," Shaun muttered.

"Well... first things first. Where..." William paused and looked sideways at Alexis, seeming to size her up, as if he hadn't looked at her properly before.

Shaun intuited what he was wondering. "She's harmless, we already told her about the Piece and the sun and everything. She knew absolutely nothing."

"You're quite sure?" William asked Shaun, not taking his eyes off Alexis. "One hundred percent?"

"Nothing's a hundred percent, Bill," Shaun spat. "I was a hundred percent sure Desmond wouldn't fucking stab any of us, and boy was I wrong!"

"Meaning you could be wrong about her as well," said William icily as he stood.

Alexis held up her hands and attempted to plead her case. "I'm not a Templar, I swear, I'll swear by... by whatever you want, okay? I'm blue in Eagle Vision even, Desmond said so!" This didn't seem to satisfy him at all, so she continued her rambling appeal. "I- I didn't even know about any of this stuff last week, I mean, yeah, Desmond told me his nutty parents believed in some ancient Templar war but he said that was a stupid conspiracy theory!" The man's jaw tightened angrily and she desperately started backpedaling. "But uh, I don't think it's stupid now, of course, I don't think you're a conspiracy nut, I..." She gasped for air. "I'm just... I'm just scared, sir."

William stared her down for several more seconds.

"I'm completely harmless, like Shaun said."

"Mm." William gave the slightest of nods and pivoted back to the other two. "Where is the Piece now?"

Shaun jerked his head to indicate a strong box over by his sleeping bag. They'd put it away in there as soon as they could, wrapping it up in fabric first for the journey from the underchurch catacomb, being ever-so-careful not to touch it with their bare skin, or even look at it for more than a moment, lest its power be unleashed again.

"Finally," William said, like he'd been waiting his whole life. "Desmond's actually done some good for us after all these wasted years."

Shaun gritted his teeth. "Yeah, but Lucy."

William closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "Lucy," he repeated in a pained sigh. There was a moment of silence before he reopened his eyes and spoke again. "Let me see them."

* * *

_Italian translations:_

_"Sarai qui molto più tempo? Questo non è un albergo!" - "Are you going to be here much longer? This is not a hotel!"_

_"Sì, lo so, perché albergatori non fastidio gli ospiti quando stanno cercando di dormire." - "Yes, I know, because hoteliers do not bother the guests when they are trying to sleep."_

_"Si dice che voi Assassini 'agire in notturna'." - "It is said that you Assassins 'work in the night'."_

_"Agiamo nell'__**ombra**__." - __"We work in the __**dark.**__"_

_"Assassini, e inglesi anche. Che palle!" __ \- "Assassins, and British too. This sucks!"_


End file.
